When Ge Ziqiang was in his hometown, he was still farming. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, not only was he busy, but the whole family was busy. Even his eldest son, who was only six years old, helped in the fields.
Alive.
Their family, young and old, is busy every day, but in the end they still don't have enough to eat.
Even though the empire has already implemented a series of agricultural policies, including rent-to-purchase orders, rent restriction orders, stepped agricultural taxes, unified taxation of gentry, grain price protection, reclamation orders, promotion of new grain varieties, promotion of fertilizers, construction of water conservancy facilities, etc.
Policies to reduce the burden on farmers and increase food production, etc.
However, the area of arable land is limited, the population is increasing rapidly, and because food production is relatively limited these days, the current Tang Empire itself.
After a year of hard work, farmers will never die of hunger. No matter what happens, there are sweet potatoes to eat!
But if you want to eat well and eat well, it is very difficult.
Even Li Xuan, the eternal sage who is greater than the sun, dare not say that the people of the entire empire have enough to eat. At most, he can barely prevent the people of the empire from starving to death.
Of course, even so, Lin Ziran is still complacent!
Through thousands of years of Chinese history, he is the only one who can rule a dynasty that will not starve to death!
Even if a natural disaster occurs somewhere, the empire can provide relief quickly to avoid large-scale famine.
But being hungry doesn’t mean being full and eating well!
Ge Ziqiang's family belongs to this kind of family. The family has a large number of young and old. At that time, they also divided the land through renting and purchasing, but the amount was limited, and then rented part of the land.
In accordance with the government's instructions, sweet potatoes and corn were planted in the wasteland of the fields!
But what!
Still not enough to eat!
Of course, this is not his family's fault. In their hometown, because there are so many people and so little land, it is basically difficult for most people to have enough to eat.
In the end, Ge Ziqiang gritted his teeth and immigrated with his whole family!
For those who have nothing and are forced to immigrate in the end, even after arriving at the immigration settlement, even their food rations need to be paid through official immigration loans.
Ge Ziqiang and his family are much better off!
Although their family did not have enough to eat in their hometown before, they were still considered to have land and a house.
Even though the land was a little short and the house was a little dilapidated, after choosing to immigrate, the real estate was sold for only a dozen yuan.
The main reason is that the land their family owns is government private land purchased through renting. The nature of this land is different from ordinary private land. Ordinary private land can be bought and sold freely. No one cares how much you buy. Of course,
If you deliberately enter into a low-price sales contract to evade taxes, the tax department will still take care of it.
The same cannot be said for official and private land. Private individuals cannot buy and sell it!
In the early years, resale of this private land was not allowed. However, considering the actual situation, the Ministry of Agriculture later revised the policy and the government took over the private land.
In other words, you can sell your land if you want, but you can only sell it to the government again, and the price is naturally not that high.
In addition to the more than 20 yuan in savings that the family had accumulated over the years, Ge Ziqiang and his family still had more than 30 yuan in savings on hand after arriving in Xinnan County.
Now hundreds of acres of land have fallen from the sky, and he has seen all that land. It is very fertile, and the government has already built water conservancy facilities nearby in advance.
After looking at these lands in detail, Ge Ziqiang went to the land of several old immigrants next door to have a look.
When he saw that the millet grown on other people's land was almost endless, he was completely stunned.
For the first time in his life, he saw a large wheat field with almost no end in sight.
After asking, I found out that this wheat field covers more than a thousand acres!
More importantly, this wheat field is owned by only three families!
Soon he had a question, even if there was so much land, how could the manpower of several neighbors cultivate and plant such a large area of land?
Even if we use oxen, I'm afraid it will be too busy!
But soon his neighbor gave him the answer, don’t use cows, use horses!
With this explanation, Ge Ziqiang realized that there was little land in his hometown and it required intensive farming. It was also cheap to raise cattle, so it was better to use cattle.
But in America, where there are many places, horses still have to be used.
After all, any citizen of the empire who is willing to come to North America can get free land, and can later purchase land from the government at a cheap price. Of course, these lands must be cultivated within a limited time, and the government will directly confiscate the land for development.
Redistributed.
This also means that even ordinary new immigrant families can obtain hundreds or even hundreds of acres of land.
With such a large amount of land, it is difficult to carry more weight solely by manpower, and must rely on accumulated force.
At the same time, because there is a lot of land and there is no deep plowing, it is most suitable to use horses to plow the land.
The American Affairs Office also vigorously promoted the horse farming policy in America and encouraged farmers to use horses to cultivate the land.
This is the same as the empire's promotion of horse farming in some of its provinces, especially in border provinces such as Northeast China, Hefeng, Hexi, Xibo, and Haidong, where the policy of horse farming was vigorously promoted.
However, whether it is cattle or horses, these are not materials provided to immigrants for free.
According to relevant immigration policies, basically new immigrants in all areas will receive land, necessary seeds, and necessary agricultural tools for free.
Then after arriving at the place, if the immigrants do not have rations, they can also get interest-free rations for one year, which will be returned year by year after one year. Moreover, it is a type of borrowing food to repay food, which is very different from ordinary immigration loans.
In addition, some areas will provide free ferry tickets or subsidies.
In addition, the Royal Bank will also provide immigration loans to immigrants, which mainly allow immigrants to expand production.
Although Ge Ziqiang's family had more than thirty yuan in savings, after careful calculation, he first applied for a one-year interest-free ration for his family, and then went to a branch of the Royal Bank to apply for an immigration loan.
With this immigration loan and his own savings, he could barely buy and feed horses.
After finishing all this work, he went home with a draft horse!
While on the road, the more he looked at the two horses, the more he liked them.
The person selling the horse said that these horses are heavy-duty draft horses originating from Europe and then bred locally. They are called New South Horses.
This New South Horse has a large body, well-developed muscles, relatively short legs, and a shoulder height of 1.63 to 1.73 meters. However, the most important thing is that it has good endurance and can adapt to the climate of North America.
This kind of New South Horse was bred on a large scale in a short period of time and then widely used in cultivation in North America and other overseas territories of the Tang Dynasty.
This Xinnan horse is a very pure draft horse. It is huge and has a huge appetite. Ge Ziqiang thought that just feeding this horse would cost a lot, but even so, he still bought this horse.
New South Horse.
Without the help of such heavy-duty draft horses, it would have been impossible for their family to reclaim hundreds of acres of land.
And as long as enough land is reclaimed with the help of this heavy-duty draft horse, the cost of raising horses will naturally come out, and more money can be made.
He had already confirmed this to several neighbors.
When the horses were pulled back, the Ge Ziqiang family began their busy reclamation career.
At the same time, He Xihua, who is an immigrant like them, but chose to live in Kuli, Haidong Province, his hometown, also ushered in an important moment in his life.
His father arrived in Kuli by train, and then proposed marriage to He Xihua, the Wu Laosan family next door. After exchanging marriage certificates, the marriage was officially confirmed.
At this time, He Xihua can be regarded as having a fiancée, and this fiancée will officially marry him and become his wife in three months.
He Xihua is full of hope and more motivated for his future life.
Because he is about to get married, He Xihua plans to renovate the small wooden house he lives in. I don't dare to say that it will be built into a big house made of bricks and tiles, but at least it will be expanded a little or two, and then he will have to hire someone to build some furniture.
Of course, all this was free of charge. The three of them, father and son, worked together, and then Wu Laosan also called a few neighbors to come over to help, and it was done in a few days.
It's just that although it doesn't cost money for neighbors to come to help you, if they come to help you, you always have to give them good food and drink.
For this reason, he specially killed two chickens and sold one of the pigs he raised.
The pork was dragged away directly by the butcher, and the pig had to be sold to pay off the loan.
But I still left some leftovers for extra meals.
I went to the city specially and bought a few kilograms of wine.
After all, it actually cost a lot of money.
But looking at the new wooden house, which was more than twice the size and much brighter, He Xihua smiled, and then looked back at the young lady of the Wu family, his fiancée, who was helping with the cooking. Not to mention how good her mood was.
Perhaps sensing that He Xihua was looking at her again, the young lady of the Wu family raised her head and looked over, but after just one glance, she quickly lowered her head, with a blush already appearing on her face.
Seeing that his second son was doing well here and that his third son's farm was starting to take off, although Father He was happy on his face, he was still not very satisfied in his heart.
In his opinion, he has raised three sons, but none of them are promising. They are all honest people who can't even let out a fart after being kicked.
Let alone anything else, these three sons couldn’t even choose to join the army!
This really makes him not proud.
Their He family is just a traditional farm family, but He's father has always been unwilling to accept it!
He desperately hopes that there will be a promising person in his family!
It would be best to join the army as a soldier like I did back then, and then go one step further than myself and become a non-commissioned officer!
Just like Fa Xiao who joined the army with him back then, he joined the army and became a non-commissioned officer. When he retired, he returned to his hometown and became a patrolman or other public servant.